


Something on the Wind

by kerlin



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-03
Updated: 2010-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-11 10:38:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/111519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerlin/pseuds/kerlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This Thread was falling wrong; even she could tell that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something on the Wind

Threadfall in the Lower Caverns was very different from Threadfall in the belly of a Hold.

Weyrfolk were certainly more aware of the danger Thread posed. They were intimately acquainted with what it could do to flesh, human and dragon, and no one older than ten Turns couldn’t recite effective ways to treat Threadscore.

In many cases, the dragonriders were kin; in all, they were friends. Every non-rider, from Master Healer down on to the custodial drudges, grieved with every injury and death.

All of this taken together meant that while weyrfolk had a healthy respect for Thread, they weren’t afraid of it – not in the paralyzing way the holderfolk were, to shut themselves underground for six hours, sitting still and quiet.

There was always a task to be had before, during, and after a Threadfall. Those of good physical condition helped the weyrlings pack and heft bags of firestone, a task that needed constant attention. Some with a quick eye and a steady hand assisted the Healers, both in preparation and in care. Kitchen workers boiled vats of water for klah, gutted and spitted herdbeasts, and baked bread to feed green and blueriders coming off shift, and in anticipation of other riders returning at the end of the fall.

Some found themselves supervising, which effectively meant that they had far too much time on their hands to think.

Benden was fighting Thread over Upper Lemos that afternoon, and the Weyr had been its usual whirl of activity. The only silence all day had been the moment when the assembled wings held position over the Weyr – and flickered between. It was a sight that never failed to awe, and every human outside craned his or her neck to watch.

Manora finished directing the bakers toward the newest shipment of flour in order to retrieve a new bag, and pushed bangs out of her face. Every morning she braided her hair tightly back, and every afternoon it slipped out, slowly and surely.

Her first moment of disease came when the first weyrling returned from firestone delivery, a young bluerider named T’lier. He had a frightened look in his eyes that Thread alone wouldn’t have put there – he was nearing graduation and had seen dozens of falls as a firestone carrier.

She wouldn’t have seen him except she was coming to check on the disposition of drudges packing firestone bags; there were a few likely candidates in the kitchen that could be shifted out if needed.

Manora was close enough to watch his hand shake on the heavy bags as he dropped them to the ground, as if she needed such detail; his Velith was tense, wings half-spread, eyes whirling red/yellow. Before she could ask what was wrong a worker tossed another harness of firestone bags over Velith’s neck and the blue ran forward a few paces then sprang into the air. A green was already hovering, ready to take his place.

T’lier’s disposition was out of mind for a quarter-candlemark as she checked in with the Healers and gave a young Apprentice directions to the back stock of redwort.

She was in the perfect position, then, to notice that when the first injured came in, they had the same look in their eyes as T’lier.

Everything happened quickly after that. In the first candlemark alone they treated as many injures as they had for the entire previous fall. Each rider came in shell-shocked, jumpy, and tense; their dragons were no better.

The Thread was falling wrong; even she didn’t need a dragon to be able to tell that.

Thankfully, none of the injuries were major, but the sheer number of them was beginning to overwhelm the Healers and their assistants. Manora returned to the Lower Caverns to chivvy some of the quicker-witted kitchen drudges to the Healing caverns, and when she returned, she found her son laying on a cot.

Weyr blood ties were thinner than Hold, but they were still blood ties. Manora’s stomach knotted and unknotted itself in the time she took to evaluate his condition: Threadscore down his left leg, not serious, but painful and debilitating enough to keep him out of the rest of this fall.

Still, a mother’s instincts brought her to his side, and he grinned wryly up at her – he had that much of his father him, though in every other aspect he took after her.

“It’s falling wrong,” F’nor said through a grimace. “Like it has a mind of its own – gusting up, down, sideways, and always right toward you, like it was looking just for you. We dodged half a dozen clumps before this one caught me.”

“The winds over Upper Lemos…” Manora suggested, her eyes scanning Canth’s side. The Thread seemed to have missed the brown dragon entirely.

“Are always bad, but not like this.” F’nor looked away from her, across the Bowl at a green that had been injured badly and was shrieking pitifully. “Nothing like this, ever before. The sharding stuff was aiming.”

Dragonriders were a superstitious lot, but she’d never heard any of them attribute intelligence to Thread before. If even F’nor, the most level-headed and solid of the senior riders, was speculating like that, even if to his own mother, then it was bad.

She left F’nor giving orders to a weyrling from his cot, his left leg slathered up and down with numbweed. The last few candlemarks of the Threadfall passed in a haze as she worked with the Healers to bandage, stitch, and calm. Halfway through, Vanora came back with her queen to help calm the injured dragons crowding the Bowl, and she confirmed to Manora what F’nor had already said.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.” The young woman shook her head decisively, her speech peppered with the short vowels and slurred consonants of her home in Tillek. “They’re going half out of their minds keeping the stuff from the ground, but I’ll bet you fifty marks some of it’s going to burrow. Asgenar won’t be too thrilled, but at least the land’s grubbed.”

F’lar didn’t return at the end of Threadfall, but Lessa did, grimed with Thread ash and reeking of agenothree. She nodded to Manora over a cup of klah and then left to be with Ramoth while the gold exerted her calming influence over panicking dragons.

The Weyrleader returned three candlemarks later, and Manora guessed by the dirt as well as ash on his flying leathers that he’d been down on the ground with Lord Asgenar, searching out every last piece of Thread and destroying it before it could eat away at the precious hardwood stands.

Manora didn’t see her bed for another four candlemarks, and even as she put head to pillow she wondered why she was bothering; she’d have to be up in a short while to supervise the morning baking anyway.

The thought slipped quickly from her mind as she made the final count in her head: none dead, only three seriously injured, but several dozen with minor injuries. Benden’s worst Threadfall yet, but by no means as drastic as it could have been. Everyone was home, everyone was safe, and they would remain so, at least for the next sevenday.

Sleep caught up with her, and she smiled drowsily as she fell into the darkness.


End file.
